ESPN Pulls Its Videos From YouTube Due To Terms Of YouTube Red Deal

Undergoing its biggest shift since it started serving advertisements, Google has finally unveiled its long-rumored subscription video service, called YouTube Red. The new service allows users ad-free viewing across all of YouTube, access to Google Play Music, and other perks for $9.99 per month. Within days of announcing the new service, ESPN has started pulling its video content from YouTube, citing a ‘rights conflict.’

ESPN content that has already been uploaded to YouTube are now marked as private. However, people can watch videos on ESPN’s own website.

Representational Image. NYTimes

However, Disney, ESPN’s parent company, has signed a deal to include its content on YouTube Red, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The deal may have not have one well with some media companies, but from Google’s perspective it will help companies like ESPN to monetize their content well than they could through the ad-supported model.

Fortune

While Google continues to drive bulk of its revenues through advertising on its search engine, it now hopes to use YouTube videos and music services to start bringing in subscription revenue as well. Analysts suggest that YouTube – one of Google’s big growth drivers – generates $5 billion to $10 billion in revenue. For now, Youtube’s paid service will be the same as the current, ad-supported version of YouTube. But it has some extra features like the ability to download videos to watch videos offline. Users can also watch the videos while they are using other applications like email.